


Ghosts

by words_are_wind



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Arya, Dialogue, F/M, Platonic Relationships, extra points for arya throwing it back in his face like are we remembering the same history here, if anything.. like borderline hostile relationships, im a sucker for that lyanna/arya parallel, more so if robert isn't a creep about it and is just like genuinely sad, she said i have time today, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 08:03:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20524679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_are_wind/pseuds/words_are_wind
Summary: Robert & Arya have a conversation.





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> this is kind of an unexplored dynamic .. had some dialogue floating around in my head and decided to write this lil thing.. if you've happened upon this, then thanks for reading^^

The chaos of the feast had died down, and usually Robert would find himself knee deep in some serving wench by this hour, but the halls of Winterfell spook him. He’s deep in his cups, the pugnacious, heady feeling from before morphing into introspection and melancholy. At every corner, it seems, lay a reminder of the woman he loved, the woman he lost. Ned had bid him goodnight earlier, cautioning him to steer clear of the crypts in an unusually soft voice. _“Leave her to rest, brother.”_ Now, he stumbles down one corridor and into a lowly lit room off the side. A study, he reckons. The walls are lined with tomes and parchment, desk scattered with loose quills and scribbled notes.

Perched by the fire is a young woman, with dark chestnut hair falling in waves past her shoulders and collecting at the dip of her waist. Her skin is pale and pristine, made near translucent by the moonlight filtering in through the window. Her face is long, graceful in its angular quality, nose strong and straight, cheekbones high. She does not notice him, fingers absently twirling the frayed hem of a blanket as her eyes—an eerie shade of gray, the kind of color the skies seep into after a good storm—rove the book which lay in her lap.

Robert feels his heart split. It’s such a familiar sight, and yet…not quite. For she is not his late betrothed. If she were, she’d be riding through the Wolfswood, perhaps. Or japing with Benjen, mussing his hair. Perhaps scrambling onto Brandon and cajoling him to properly teach her swordplay. Instead, it is sixteen years later, where near all the major players have died, with their ghosts roaming the halls of this Northern fortress.

Still, the sight of this young woman—or rather, her ghost—sets Robert’s heart leaping like a pitiful thing. He ambles forward, pausing to clutch at the edge of the desk, knuckles bone white.

“Lya,” he murmurs. The endearment feels foreign coming from his mouth. It’s been some time since he spoke her name aloud, since he addressed her outside of his tortured nightmares.

The girl—Arya, Ned had introduced earlier, “_my little wolf,” he said proudly_—peers up from her spot by the fire. Sputtering, she abruptly closes her book on … **Tales of the First Men & the Children of the Forest**, Robert makes out. _Wild tales for a wild girl_, he thinks. He’d laugh if he weren’t currently having an aneurysm. She rises to her bare feet, blanket whipping around her like a cape.

“Your grace,” she grunts, eyes wide as saucers. She dips into an awkward curtsy next, posture stiff as she lowers her head and flares the fabric of her night dress. Rising, she blows a stray wad of dark tresses from her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t—did you have need of the room? I’ll take my leave.”

Robert collects himself, unlatching and flexing his hand. He dare not take a step closer, feeling strangely vulnerable and not at all the strapping young man he thinks is befitting of this young woman. He feels the ache in his bones, the lines on his face, the heaviness in his heart. He jerkily shakes his head. “No, that’s. That’s alright, I didn’t mean to interrupt, my lady,” he says haltingly.

She cocks her head, brows twisted up as if surprised by his reaction. After a moment, she shrugs, settling back down in her seat and peering up at him, eyes cautious. “Arya,” she offers. 

Robert averts his gaze and strides towards the window, nodding. He clasps his hands behind him and looks out at the waned moon, sitting high and pretty in the clear sky. “Arya,” he repeats, testing out the name on his lips. _For the Queen Arya? Or Arya Flint? _he wonders.

When he turns, she’s still watching him, body tense as she gathers her book in her arms, a calculating look in her eyes. She seems … vigilant, Robert surmises with a grimace. No doubt she’s heard of his debased proclivities. Any other day, any other place, and certainly any other person and he might have a laugh. He was a king of consumption, he knew—whores, food, drink. He cared little for gossip, cared even less for the icy glares Cersei shot him. He did as he pleased, and for the last two decades or so, it suited him fine. But to see this girl with _that_ face assessing him so thoroughly, face neutral save for the slight frown of her lips, felt jarring. King Robert suddenly felt a stupid green boy, needing to puff up his chest and defend his worth. There could be no posturing in front of her, though. No, not if she was Lya’s kin.

So they stare at one another in ridiculous silence, until it becomes too much for Robert’s already inebriated and sensitive mind, and he blurts, “You look like her.”

“Lyanna?” He nods. Arya drops her head, a sad smile spreading on her face. “My father doesn’t talk about her much,” she says quietly. “But sometimes, he or some of the nobles too, I guess, will look at me the way you are right now.” She raises her head, a pitying expression marring her features.

Robert’s hackles rise. “And what way is your king looking at you, my lady?”

Her response is immediate. “Like a phantom haunts you so. Like you wish someone else were in my place. My king,” she spits, smile gone.

“Lyanna was a good woman, and any lady should be grateful to have her likeness,” he says, grasping for a reasonable argument, trying to explain away some men’s perverse, miserable love of ghosts.

Arya rises then, expression cold as she gathers her belongings and rounds the seat, heading for the doorway. Shaking her head, she approaches him instead, bounding right up to his spot by the window with a suddenly dogged look on her face. She only comes to his chest, head rearing back to stare at him square in the face.

“For as good a woman as she may have been, her actions flung the realm into chaos. My grandfather burned to a crisp, my uncle strangled in an attempt to save him,” she grits out, frustration coloring her voice.

He sputters to explain—explain to this _child—_that it was more complicated than that, but Arya continues.

“She was selfish,” she starts, eyes sad, “and she more than paid the price for it. As did her family. But whenever I hear this story, so few mention the circumstances. She was barely four and ten when she was betrothed to you, your grace. Your love of warming beds and guzzling wine already well known. Prince Rhaegar was nearly a decade her senior, he had a beautiful wife and two young children to care for when he dumped that damned wreath on her lap. In the end, you went to war for a woman-child you barely knew, you marched into the Red Keep, saw the mangled bodies of Elia and her babes Lord Tywin presented, and not only did you accept it; you married his daughter. Lyanna was still just a child, and she wasted away in a blasted tower smelling of roses and blood. There is so much, so much the story misses. Instead, I have to listen to sad, old men tell me to curb my willfulness lest I meet the same fate as my aunt. I am no ghost, your grace, and Lyanna is more than a cautionary tale on _wildness_.” Arya spits the last word as if it were a curse, as if the realm itself bastardized it, and perhaps it did. Her eyes are glassy with angry tears, fists clenched as she folds her arms across her chest like it might protect the poor muscle beneath.

Robert is stunned, he hadn’t heard two words from Arya during the feast, and here she was berating him—her king!—to bits. He did not mean to have this conversation when he drunkenly stumbled into this room tonight. He feels laid out, roughspun, and stupid. He could strike her, he thinks absently. For her impertinence, her lack of courtesy. For her smart mouth. Her honesty. He meets her bitter glare as best he can.

“My lady,” he starts harshly, “you would do well to—”

“Did you even love her?” When her question is met with stony silence, Arya whirls around, making for an exit.

Robert’s hand shoots out, rough fingers circling her small wrist. The skin is delicate, he thinks, soft and pretty. Ned’s voice cuts through the back of his mind. _You saw her beauty, Ned chided, but not the iron underneath. _Shaking his head, Robert gives the girl a deliberate tug, forcing her to face him.

“She is the only one I’ve ever loved,” he rasps, honest with himself for the first time in a while.

Arya doesn’t wrench free of his grasp, doesn’t spit in his face or curse him to seven hells the way he imagines Lya might’ve if she’d seen the kind of man he’d become. Her wrist goes limp as she peers back at him, eyes imploring. “And did she love you?” she asks quietly.

For that, he has no answer, and he feels all the more pathetic for it. A noise from the corridor disrupts the silence, and the two break apart. A figure pauses in the doorway then, a young man with inky curls and a solemn Stark face.

“Arya,” Jon Snow calls out, voice concerned. Belatedly, he takes notice of the other person in the room and immediately bows. “Your grace.”

Robert does not answer, simply grunting in acknowledgment as Arya bounds to her bastard brother, carefully taking his arm.

“Jon,” she murmurs. “I was just heading to bed. Walk with me?”

He nods, turning back to the king to bid him goodnight before leaving with his sister.

Robert watches them go, skin prickling at the tender and somewhat melancholy look on the bastard’s face. It’s an expression he knows well, and not just for Ned’s somber countenance. He thinks of a dragon prince with the same aching eyes, the same softness for a willful wolf girl. _Strange_, Robert thinks, _this place is too full of ghosts. _


End file.
